#cafe vesuvio

[folderolsoup]

Henri Lenoir, owner of Café Vesuvio, stands in front of their tongue-in-cheek ad for a “Beatnik Kit.”

[awasteoftimecomic]

When I started doing A Waste of Time, I came up with a broad outline of where the series would eventually go, and I've always known a lot about what would be happening later on in the books. Part of what I did in the first comics was start creating a language of visual symbols that I knew I could quote later, and their meaning would have more depth in the context of what I had said about them earlier on. These two panels are part of two different anecdotes that happened in Cafe Vesuvio in North Beach, but they're meant to recall each other. I knew that the panels would look different when I drew them years apart, so I came up with the idea that it could be part of an intentional metatextual thing where you could watch my style evolve, since a lot of the comics are about finding your voice as an artist. My drawing style has changed so much, though, that I wonder if people will even noticed that the two panels are supposed to echo each other. Guess that means I'll just have to keep redrawing panels from the older comics and be stuck on Volume Two in perpetuity...

[rustbeltjessie]

Vesuvio by Jessie Lynn McMains Via Flickr: Photo by Emchy. (2007)